Greg combines his passions for nature, travel and photography to create wildlife images from around the world.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Day Fourteen and Fifteen: August 23 and 24

This morning it was pretty grey and chilly out so the
sightings were far and few between. We went north and saw a giraffe and a very
young baby, a few jackals and a white rhino. On the way back we came across a male
leopard and photographed him for a while then went for lunch. After lunch we
spent most of our time with the lion pride. We got a call that there was a
leopard sighting, but he was 25 minutes away, so we opted to stay with the
lions.

Day Fifteen: Aug 24: Mala Mala. Morning safari and departure
to Johannesburg. Flight back to North America.

One of the rangers saw a leopard dragging a warthog, so this
morning we went south to see if we could find it. We found the drag marks, and
part of the kill at the base of a tree, but no leopard. A few minutes later we
saw a leopard kill on a tree (a dyker) that hadn’t been eaten at all, so we figured he
would be back but he never showed up, so we decided to move on. Thankfully moving on was a good decision. Several hours later we got word that the leopard still hadn't showed up to eat his meal.

About half an
hour after leaving the dyker in the tree we came around a corner, our ranger; Peter looked down and again there was a small female leopard
lying right on the edge of the road not three feet from the land rover. Keeping
our distance, we followed her for the rest of the morning through thick bush
and then on thick reeds on the river bank. Just when it was almost time to
leave we managed to get stuck and had to be towed out. On our way back to the
lodge, one of the springs came loose and was rubbing against the back driver
side tire, so we had to stop, jack up the vehicle and do some repairs before
continuing on. All in all, it was quite an adventerous morning.